On Sundays she sets the sun
on the table after salad.
We don’t talk anymore
as steam escapes the carved meat
of the giant star. Slices
are doled onto corelle plates.
I am used to its taste now.
I know how she goes
to the field before dawn,
unpockets a butterfly
knife to make short work
of the lumps of sun surrounded
by a forest of corn. No one suspects
yet, what glows inside us,
what we are slowly stealing
as we harvest the fallen
hunks amid husks;
the sun is shedding
itself for us. Every week
a lock of sun hair lands
in our field to be cut
and eaten. I am sure
this hunger is sin. We don’t talk
anymore, not even in bed,
under three layers of quilts.
I hear her whimper at night, know
we have broken some contract.
It is too soon to be this
cold—we do not say when
a short yawn would reveal
the light that curls, crawls
up our ribs, now rising—
a kiss and it would be morning
in our mouths.
Donna Huneke was enamored with at least three but no more than five of her teachers while growing up. This caused her to write poems and stories that would hopefully make said teachers take her seriously and fall in love with her. Those relationships didn't pan out, though they did lead her toward getting a BA in Creative Writing last month. She has no idea what she's going to do next. (DMHuneke@gmail.com)